Legends and Lives
by CosmicInbalance
Summary: An abstract look at the Dark Knight and his impact on the average Gothamite.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Hi! This is my very first story, though I have several in the works. Please read and review! Also—with the flaming? Be harsh (I need it) but don't just say it's stupid and I suck and why the **** did you ever try and write anything, tell me where I went wrong. Thanks, and on with the show! Lights.

Who am I? I'm nobody. No past, no present, no future. A corporate drone with a face and a name no one can remember. My life is a dead-end alley. Someday someone will walk in and cut me down and leave me among the other dead things that rot in the darkness. Until then, I'm stuck sitting in a grey ergonomic chair in a boring grey cubicle among hundreds of others in their grey ergonomic chairs in their boring grey cubicles. We all type our reports on our typically late-model computers, doing our jobs 9 to 5, before heading home in one sudden exodus. Every once in a while, my mind wonders in the midst of writing and whatever bleak quarterly earnings assessment I'm writing will turn into a story. I'll sit back and give a little secret smile as I read. Then with a press of a button, it vanishes and is slowly replace by meaningless work.

Who am I? I'm nobody. A cog, a peon, a NPC in the videogame of life. Worthless, expendable, useless, and altogether unimportant. Until that one day. That one fateful day when I realized that someone cared.

I was having one of those days. Inevitable as a Monday and as typical as the sun rising at dawn. A coffee-spilled, computer-virus-ate-my-report, rain-and-no-umbrella, not-a-cab-in-sight-and-left-my-subway-pass-at-home kind of day. Walking through the streets after work, I pulled my arms around me, trying to melt into myself and become nothing more than another shadow in the rain, hoping that would save me from the scum that haunts the heart of the city during the day. Oh, I forgot to mention this—I live in Gotham City. That's right. Crime capital of the east coast, a city that'll be sweet to you and kiss you and steal everything from you—including your soul—the instant your eyes close. So I hid in myself, walking like I had somewhere to go, like I wasn't a target, like someone was expecting me. _Please, please, please…_High heels snapped through puddles. Light glinted off oily water. My skirt flapped around my legs like an extra skin. No cabs. I bet they wouldn't have taken me in anyway, considering my soaking and sorry state. I resisted glancing over my shoulder, knowing cops weren't afraid to nail people on count of looking suspicious, even in the rain. As if I'd have been able to see anyone through the torrential downpour. No, it seemed almost as if it was just me and the city, with its crazy crooked streets and looming towers. For a moment, it seemed like that was all there was. City, rain, light… and me.

But Gotham City loves no one, not even the lonely creatures that almost are a part of the stone work. Just as I was nearing my East End home, the weight of the water finally overcame the structural integrity of my bun. With a wet snap, my dripping locks cascaded around my face. I cursed silently. Typical. I stepped through the veil of water into an alleyway, sliding into a dimly lit haven where only a few splatters managed to squeeze between the spires and gargoyles of the gothic buildings. I set down my purse and began to braid my hair. Even without a proper tie, braiding it would keep my hair out of my face long enough for me to get home without a spectacular trip/splash to end my typical, typical day. I bent down to retrieve my purse. When I straightened, I found myself at the business end of a gun. It cocked with a smooth, oiled click. Standing not five feet away from me was a man. A man with a gun.

"Gimme your wallet." His voice trembled. I wanted to cry, and my throat constricted painfully, making me unable to speak. Sure, I'd been mugged before. Who hasn't in Gotham? But that time, I had something to give. This time, I had nothing. I forced my eyes away from that sparkling gunmetal blue. I caught a glimpse of a battered old sign above the man's left shoulder. Weathered and worn, the words were barely decipherable. 'Park Row,' said the letters. A man. With a gun. In an alley.

Hasn't this story been told before?

"Wallet, now." The hand holding the gun trembled and my eyes slid toward it again, locking on. My hands shook almost in sympathy. My purse dropped. The man flinched. I could see the finger almost slide the trigger back. So deathly pale were his hands, with royal blue veins tracing snaky patterns under his skin. I held my hands in front of my thighs, palms out. Almost a shrug. I still couldn't speak, but the man got the message. The wrist jerked. "Jewelry, then," he growled. A weak attempt at sounding intimidating, but I was nevertheless terrified. Any moment now… I reached my hands up slowly to the clasp of my mother's paste-pearl necklace. Worth so little. So little to everyone save me. "Now!" he roared, giving a quick glance over his shoulder. My hands fumbled at the clasp. Too slow. Thunder cracked, deafening me. Searing pain racked my body and I crumpled like a marionette with severed strings. I think I might have screamed. I could feel the bullet grinding against bone. My blood almost sizzled on contact with the rain, hot red life, spilling out and mingling with the dirt. The man shook like a leaf in a winter storm. Had he meant to-? Yes. Yes he did. He strode forward, angry, muttering under his breath. He roughly hooked the gun under the pearls. The cold steel kissed my throat, and I tilted my head back as far as it would go, trying to escape my fate. My breath quickened as the gun was cocked again, that slick whispery sliding of metal on metal the only sound save for the sound of my breathing, fast and pained. The pearls caressed the barrel of the gun as if they were lovers. I was going to die here in the alley, finally and inevitably cut down. The man clenched his teeth. It occurred to me then that I hadn't even seen my killer's face. I had been so fixated on that deadly bright bit of steel. I met his eyes then. His eyes… so empty…frightened… he was just another person Gotham had chewed up and spit out, broken on the hard anvil of life. Just another person. Worthless. Useless. He might as well as not exist. He could have been me. I could have been him. It would have made no difference. One of us would have walked away a murderer, and another would have been carried out in an anonymous black bag.

And then, in that infinity moment between life and death, a whisper of cloth. A crack of black fist on bone. The strand of pearls snapped as the man was jerked back into the shadows. The dull thud of flesh on flesh reverberated deep in my eardrums. Along with the mantra, chanted in a deep, inhuman, and very angry voice: "Not here. Not now. Never again!" The pearls rattled to the ground around me, a soft tap-tap-tap like rain.

Hasn't this story been told before?

Just before I blacked out, I saw my savior. A man. In a cape. In a cowl. Hite empty eyes. The wings of a bat.

Batman?

I woke up in a hospital bed, bandaged and weak and… thoughtful. I had tasted death, seen its cold empty eyes. I had come so close to becoming just another statistic. A Jane Doe with no one looking for me or crying over my coffin. A nobody. And I realized… I didn't want that. I had always been okay with being just another person, indistinguishable from the rest. No interaction, no reason to be. I realized that at least one person cared about me. Maybe I ought to care about myself. By saving me, Batman had taught me that I wasn't worthless. And I decided right then and there as the kindly lady doctor poked at my shoulder while I sat there in my bare-back hospital gown, that I had better live up to that fact. When I went back to the office, I said hi back to my coworkers, instead of just nodding. When the man with warm hazel eyes from two cubicles over asked me how I was faring and gave me a secret smile, I gave a secret smile back. During break we chatted and I gave him my number. The next time a report wandered off into a story, I kept writing till it was done and saved it.

I'm not nobody any more. I'm a young woman with stories in her head, working hard to get somewhere, a handsome coworker and some friends waiting to cheer me up whenever I need them. I have become an important figure in my own life. I'm stronger than I was, I can see that now. I have hope. Every time that symbol flashes across the night sky in all its blazing glory, I have faith that everything will be okay. I still can feel that deadly sweet kiss of metal against my throat. I owe him. Even if I never see him again, I at least owe him my belief.

Demon, god, or man, the Batman saved me from two fates.

I'm not nobody anymore.

Hasn't this story been told before?


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I originally intended Legends and Lives to be a one-shot. Surprise! My brain came up with this while I was on the bus, purposely not thinking about possibly failing the math midterm. I can't promise sustained and regular posting, but I'll try.

Disclaimer: This story is mine. Everything else belongs to DC.

Lights

Is this real?

I'm not sure anymore.

My world is white. I'm not sure if it's small or large or both. I like to think it's vast. Small spaces… they make everything louder. My world is very quiet though, except sometimes when other people appear out of the whiteness and try and talk to me. The quiet drowns them out, and I ignore them. I think it might be cold; my arms are always hugging me like they did when I shivered in the streets. I can't feel anything though, so I'm not sure. Sometimes I'm sure I'm going crazy. The whisper tells me everyone is crazy.

IF I WASN'T CRAZY, I'D BE INSANE!

It wasn't always like this. I used to live in a small apartment in Gotham City. Have you heard of it? Some people say that crazy is in the water. I think they're wrong. The crazy lives under the city, feeding its roots. You didn't know cities have roots? It's something the whisper told me. Cities grow from ideas and feed on souls. Gotham's idea was Arkham. If the seed is crazy, so is the city, no matter how hard it tries to be something shiny and bright, like Metropolis or Central City. That's why when I was in Gotham, I didn't need the whisper to tell me if I was crazy, and that's why I was never accused of being crazy. Everyone's crazy in Gotham. But I'm getting sideways of myself.

I was a street kid. I guess why that's why the shadows followed me. I never really could figure it out, though. Why pick me? There were plenty of other kids to torment. But they would not. Leave. Me. Alone.

LEAVE ME ALONE!

Sorry, sorry. Anyway. When I was older, the shadows still haunted me, but they weren't so overt about it. I got some jobs. Simple things. A carjacking, drug trafficking, second-story work. I'm pretty good at it. I made some money, and got my apartment. The blue men couldn't do anything. I laughed at them, sometimes, in private, because I knew it was their job to stop me and they were just no good. Or maybe I was too good. Which way, which way? The whisper says that they were just no good. Oh. Oh well.

One day, my friends took me to a warehouse. "Guy's putting together a crew. Smart guy, smart mouth. But he's got big plans. City-big. Lots of money," they told me. "All kinds of crazy," they added. I didn't mind them. Everyone is crazy in Gotham.

Not like him. NOT LIKE HIM!

I stepped in the room, and took one look at the guy. And the shadows went quiet. Deathly quiet.

The silence was beautiful. Living in a city like Gotham, there is always noise. Always, no matter how much soundproofing there is in your apartment, a siren or a scream or the roar of traffic at rush hour will leak in. Even in the really tall buildings, the ones you go all the way up to the clouds in, that bend and waver and melt sometimes, I imagine there's noise. The shadows never go away, after all. Not true, actually, as I've discovered. There are no shadows in my white world. At night, everything is just a flat black. Sometimes, my imagination tricks me, but the whisper tells me they aren't real.

Sideways again! Sorry. So: deathly quiet. No noise. This guy, he turned, and he _looked_ at me. I wanted to flinch so bad. His eyes. What color were they? Jeez. Single most important moment of my life was when that guy looked at me, and I can't even remember the color of his eyes. He smiled, even as he talked. I couldn't hear him of course, when he talked to me. It was like he was speaking silence. But I understood what he wanted. The whisper told me. And I agreed to work for him. The whisper laughed.

Before I continue, there's something you should probably know.

The shadows have a leader. I didn't know it until after I met the Silent Man. Well, I mean, I did know, it's just that I didn't believe it. I thought the Batman was a myth, a shadow that someone thought was bigger and meaner and tougher than all of the other shadows (who're really just a nuisance) because they were crazy. I know better now. Everyone is crazy in Gotham after all. The Batman is really for sure really real. I've killed shadows before, they can't fight back. The Batman can. I guess he wants to save the shadows? I'm not sure.

The Silent Man wanted to kill the shadows. The whisper said that he could make them all go away, and everything would be blissfully quiet. FOREVER. He did make them quiet, in the end. I'm here now, and its quiet, right? But the whisper says this was just a happy coincidence. The Silent Man hired me to kill the blue men guarding the fountain. The whisper said that the blue men had to die because they were protecting the shadow-life-bringer. I didn't want to. The blue men might not be good at their jobs, but it didn't mean that they had to die. The Silent Man continued to smile and handed me a knife. The whisper told me that killing blue men was like killing shadows.

The blue men didn't die quick, but they died easy. Were they related to shadows? When that thought occurred to me, I suddenly felt less bad about killing them. When I stepped around the corner to give the go-ahead to the others, they were on the ground. I didn't understand at first. Had the shadows killed them? No, they were alive still. I turned around to go find the Silent Man when the leader of the shadows attacked me. He swept out of the darkness and kicked me hard in the chest. I stumbled backward, but didn't fall. I swung the knife wildly, aiming for the shadow-symbol of a bat on his chest. To my surprise my knife disappeared. Instead, my wrist twisted impossibly and it shattered. I screamed, at least I think I did. The shadows were so loud, shrieking. They dove at me and I cowered, but that didn't stop them. Everything went black.

And then I woke up here, in my white world. Sometimes the people who appear have paper. I can read upside down. I don't think they know. The whisper tells me they don't. I read terrible things. Maybe it's the newspaper? Things like serial killer, or paranoid schizophrenic. I hope they caught this guy.

The whisper just laughs.


End file.
